Steve Blank

OCTOBER 15, 2019

HR processes, legal processes, financial processes, acquisition and contracting processes, security processes, product development and management processes, and types of organizational forms etc. All of these are great strategies and tools that business schools build, and consulting firms help implement.

Government 315

Government Technical Review Acquisition Metrics 315

Steve Blank

AUGUST 3, 2012

Long before there was the Lean Startup, Business Model Canvas or Customer Development there was a guy in Santa Barbara California who had already figured it out. Frank Robinson of SyncDev has been helping companies figure out their minimum viable product and pivots since 1984, long before I even knew what it meant.

San Jose 256

San Jose Technical Review Customer Development Software Review 256

Steve Blank

MARCH 3, 2015

The disadvantage is that its methodology was based on the old waterfall model of product development and not the agile and lean methods that startups use today. It taught lean theory ( business model design , customer development and agile engineering) and practice. Berkeley-wide.

Business Plan 120

Business Plan Silicon Valley Saudi Arabia Lean 120

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

This post describes a solution – the Customer Development Model. In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provide the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

Steve Blank

MARCH 15, 2011

By now the nine teams in our Stanford Lean LaunchPad Class were formed, In the four days between team formation and this class session we tasked them to: Write down their initial hypotheses for the 9 components of their company’s business model (who are the customers? what’s the product? what distribution channel?

Business Model 236

Business Model Nebraska Peru Germany 236

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Are there customers for what you are building? How many are there?

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

The Founder’s New Insight Smart founders are never satisfied with simply executing their current business model, they are constantly observing, orienting and deciding whether their current business model can be made better. It’s a natural part of learning about your customers and business model.)

Customer 195

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 195

Steve Blank

JANUARY 6, 2014

In the last few years Agile and “Continuous Deployment” has replaced Waterfall and transformed how companies big and small build products. Agile is a tremendous advance in reducing time, money and wasted product development effort – and in having products better match customer needs. It enables new business models.

Continuous Deployment 329

Continuous Deployment Customer Agile Cloud 329

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 22, 2008 The three drivers of growth for your business model. The AARRR model (hence pirates, get it?) He also has a discussion of how your choice of business model determines which of these metric areas you want to focus on. Choose one.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Steve Blank

MAY 14, 2012

The excerpts, which appeared first at Inc.com , highlight the Customer Development process, best practices, tips and instructions contained in our book. ———– Whether your venture is a new pizza parlor or the hottest new software product, beware: These nine flawed assumptions are toxic.

Balance Sheet 335

Balance Sheet Business Model Customer Development Metrics 335

K9 Ventures

AUGUST 13, 2010

Maybe that was the right thing to do to get the business, but the key point is that we didn’t test how much they would have been willing to pay. I tell these stories to lay the groundwork for what I am going to call Revenue Development. Like Product Development and Customer Development, this too requires conscious iteration.

Revenue 72

Revenue Developer Java Customer Development 72

OnlyOnce

JUNE 20, 2013

Book Short: Deep Dive on Customer Development. One of Blank’s great lines in the book is that a “A startup is a temporary organization in search of a scalable, repeatable, profitable business model.” ” That frames the whole Lean Startup movement really, really well.

Customer Development 61

Customer Development Developer Customer Lean 61

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

A business plan has a set of assumptions (who’s the customer, what’s the price, what’s the channel, what are the product features that matter, etc.) that make up a business model. Yet by first customer ship most of the business model hasn’t been validated or tested. Pivots Versus Crises.

Burn Rate 247

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 247

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. See Customer Development Engineering for my first stab at articulating the theory involved) Ferocious customer-centric rapid iteration, as exemplified by the Customer Development process.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2012

He turned his PhD thesis into a killer product, got it funded and now was CEO of a company of 30. It was great to watch him embrace the spirit and practice of customer development. He was constantly in front of customers, listening, selling, installing and learning. We’re building the wrong product!”

Founder 316

Founder Cofounder Advisory Board Burn Rate 316

Steve Blank

MARCH 4, 2014

These groups are adapting or adopting the practices of startups and accelerators – disruption and innovation rather than direct competition, customer development versus more product features, agility and speed versus lowest cost. Every large company, whether it can articulate it or not, is executing a proven business model (s).

IRR 335

IRR Startup Business Model Agile 335

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

by Bill Lee, author of “ The Hidden Wealth of Customers: Realizing the Untapped Value of Your Most Important Asset “ The old paradigm works like this: Your company produces goods and services that help customers get a job done. In return, the customers pay you money.

Customer 168

Customer Social Media Retention Canada 168

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

I suggested the best place to start the conversation is with the 21 st century definition of a startup: A startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. Startups have finite time and resources to find product/market fit before they run out of money.

Widget 120

Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

Nick Kim , Crosscut’s Head of Platform, in his presentation at the 4th Annual VC Platform Summit, shared their Platform development methodology, which he viewed as an exercise in product development. For example, recruiting writ large is useful at all stages of development. Customer Development.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors. So their management teams were insisting that they OEM (buy from someone else) these products. The answer depends on your answer to two questions: which step in the Customer Development process are you on?

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

If so, the business world is full of specialists who are all too eager to help. Talented product developers. Customer content and engagement built rapid growth in the success of Intel ’s social media and Web-based marketing efforts, increasing “customer contacts” by a factor of tenfold and overall page views by 100x.

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

Own the development methodology - in a traditional product development setup, the VP Engineering or some other full-time manager would be responsible for making sure the engineers wrote adequate specs, interfaced well with QA, and also run the scheduling "trains" for releases. Labels: product development 15comments: mukund said.

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

conversionxl.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem. Not because they have a conversion problem but because they never really nail the product or how to market it. This is a customer development problem. So What is Customer Development? Extra Lucrative Conversion Advice.

Customer Development 60

Customer Development Conversion Developer Customer 60

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 22, 2012

It must cross boundaries, working cooperatively with other divisions in your business such as sales, marketing, social media, PR, product development, and the like. Too often salespeople may “hoard” their prize references, fencing them off from big opportunities to promote or close business for you.

Programming 145

Programming Customer Social Media Advisory Board 145

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

What matters is proving the viability of the company’s business model, what investors call “traction.&# Of course this is not at all true of many profitable small businesses, but they are not what I mean by startups.) In fact, this company hasn’t shipped any new products in months.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

Startups especially can benefit by using technical debt to experiment, invest in process, and increase their product development leverage. The biggest source of waste in new product development is building something that nobody wants. Leverage product development with open source and third parties.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. In contrast to simply executing your business plan, the Customer Development process is built on low-cost and continuous learning and iterating.

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Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 122

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

One way to conceive of our goal in an early-stage venture is to incrementally “fill in the blanks&# for the business model that we think will one day power our startup. For example, say that your business model calls for a 4% conversion rate – as ours did initially at IMVU.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

Struggling to explain the successes and failures of those companies, I discussed principles like continuous deployment, customer development, and a hyper-accelerated form of agile. Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits are among the earliest adopters of new ideas such as Lean Startup and customer development.

Lean 167

Lean Entrepreneur Agile San Francisco 167

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2013

LSC: Tell us about the customer development you did for your book: Alistair: We''ve been thrilled at how Lean Analytics seemed to resonate with founders. As operators of an accelerator—and founders in our own right—Ben and I had constantly struggled with what the “right” numbers are for a business. Many companies like certainty.

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Widget Metrics 167

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 18, 2010

Lean, when used in the context of lean startup, refers to a process of building companies and products using lean manufacturing principles applied to innovation. That process involves rapid hypothesis testing, validated learning about customers , and a disciplined approach to product development.

Lean 167

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 167

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 27, 2009

It uses principles of agile software development, open source and web 2.0, and lean manufacturing to guide the creation of technology businesses that create disruptive innovation. This presentation will empower entrepreneurs and managers to: -Identify a profitable business model faster and cheaper than your competitors.

Lean 60

Lean Austin San Francisco Continuous Deployment 60

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 15, 2017

One of my clients discovered that his most demanding customers were consistently the ones who ended up recruiting many new customers and helping with product development. Or the differences could be minute and provide you the opportunity to develop these “on-the-cusp” members into full-fledged superusers.

Community 124

Community LLC Customer Developer 124

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

The Ultimate Combination of Startup Business Development Methods - ArcticStartup , November 16, 2010 I've been a huge fan of Steven Blank's Customer Development methodology for a long time. few years ago I also started following Alexander Osterwalder in his blog about his Business Model Generation -mantra.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 15, 2010

We can’t even rely on a suite of line-extension products. We have to continually invent new categories of products, new platforms, and new business models – all extremely risky bets. Comprehensive means it has to address all aspects of a startups life: marketing and product development, especially.

IPO 166

IPO San Francisco Lean Silicon Valley 166

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 16, 2010

It requires separating the product launch from the marketing launch (see Dont Launch ) as well as other staple Lean Startup tactics: minimum viable product, split-testing, customer development and the pivot. That is customer development. That is the essence of proving the business in micro-scale.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco Lean Analytics Continuous Deployment 167

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

But Iridium’s business model assumptions were fixed like it was still 1990. No Business Plan Survives First Contact With A Customer. A Customer Discovery and Validation process that was ongoing with product development could have provided early warning that its market was not developing in Iridium’s favor.

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Business Plan Customer Business Model Customer Development 335